“What is to be done?” I think about this question a lot. Not what is to be said, but done. A lot of writing about the contemporary world focuses on telling us how bad a problem is, or who’s at fault. OK, yes: the world is broken, politicians are often corrupted, the crises of inequality, racism and climate are intensifying. But what is to be done about that? Changing consciousness is indeed part of changing the world, but movements for change have never succeeded solely by changing consciousness, or insisting that everyone share the same world view before we act together.
People are messy, imperfect, confused, distracted and often overworked. And yet, we have often managed to come together in effective ways to enact real change. Always, at the core of that process of effective change is one word: organizing, the process by which people turn the resources they have into the power they need to make the change they want. Movements for change do not happen spontaneously; they are organized. Other things that look like movements, like protests or popular hashtags, do often happen spontaneously, but they almost always fail.
And being organized isn’t a guarantee of success. Organizations have many of their own challenges and pitfalls. Many develop into bureaucracies that move slowly and stifle creativity. Many become more focused on sustaining themselves as well-known brands rather than solving the problem they were created to address. Many struggle for resources like funding and attention, or twist themselves into pretzels to satisfy funders or ride passing fads. It’s easy to fall into despair or cynicism about how hard it is to effect change. Though, as a dear organizer friend of mine liked to say, if it was easy, this would have been done already.
I’ve been a writer and organizer my whole adult life. I started out in the early 1980s writing for magazines like The Progressive, The Nation and Middle East Report about topics that I was involved in politically, like nuclear disarmament and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the 13 years that I worked for The Nation as an editor, my interests broadened and shifted towards domestic politics, which I thought more progress could be made (ha!). In the 1990s, I dove deep into the world outside the two-party framework that dominates America, first with a quarterly newsletter called The Perot Periodical (it was pre-web but remnants can be found here or in boxes in my basement) and eventually with a book called Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America. I also took a job working in the world of advocacy organizing around the issue of money in politics, working hard to convert anger at political corruption into meaningful reforms like public financing of elections. That also led to another book I’m proud of co-authoring, Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? Washington on $2 Million a Day. And then, in the late 1990s/early 2000s, like many other people, I discovered the Internet and got excited about its potential to open up the media to more voices and “democratize” the system. That led to years helping curate the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference, advising the Sunlight Foundation, and co-founding Civic Hall. When Trump got elected, I got more active in local organizing too, helping start an Indivisible group that I’m still quite involved with.
I’m now a free agent, having left Civic Hall a year ago to finish a novel I’ve been developing for a while. (More on that when it’s ready.) I write a weekly free newsletter called The Connector, which I hope you’ll subscribe to. And with this post, I’m now a weekly contributor to Medium.
I’m writing this post to introduce myself in case you’re discovering my work for the first time. If there’s a through-line to my writing and organizing, it’s the pursuit of one thing: What is to be done so that ordinary people have a greater say in the decisions that affect their lives? Also, what needs not be done, or done less. I focus on the intersection of politics, tech and activism. And I have a number of topics I return to often, including: power, democracy, philanthropy, civic infrastructure, the history of change, fighting fascism, digital organizing, third parties, privacy and speculative fiction. There may also be an occasional bad Dad joke or Monty Python reference, readers be advised.
Like everyone, I’m on a journey of self-education. I want to understand the world better, in order to change it. I expect to make mistakes and learn alongside you, my readers. My promise is to remain hopeful. Again and again, despite the odds, people have figured out how to organize successfully. Yes, the barriers seem high, even impassable, and the times seem worse than ever. That was surely true for past generations, and it didn’t stop them from organizing. So here we are. The great work continues.